Top Five Comedy Horrors

June 12, 2009

With Doghouse in cinemas now, Movies.ie takes a look at its favourites comedy horrors…

If what we are seeing in British horror at the moment is true, masculinity is having a little bit of a crisis. The men are terrified and the women are revolting in this week’s new release Doghouse as an airborne toxin turns women into cannibals with a particular taste for male flesh. Tongue is firmly in cheek as some of the most familiar faces of gritty English drama of the past few years (Stephen Graham: This Is England, Noel Clarke: Adulthood, Terry Stone: Rise of the Footsoldier, Danny Dyer: eh… Straightheads anyone?) come a cropper at the hands (and formidable fingernails) of the female inhabitants of a sleepy English village. Horror is always a small step away from comedy but it is a notoriously difficult combination to pull off. Each one of our top fivemanages to be at once horrifying and hilarious.

Drag Me to Hell

The most recent release on our list, Drag Me To Hell is nevertheless an immediate classic of the genre. Sam Raimi returns to his horror roots after years of more mainstream success and with the zeal that he throws around his characters it’s immediately apparent that he’s having as much fun as the audience. The film follows the extreme misfortunes of loan officer Christine who finds herself on the receiving end of a curse after refusing an extension to a Gypsy woman (always a bad idea). Raimi knows the comic potential of buckets of blood and mucus while also ramping up the tension with some genuine jump out of your seat moments.